metronome use

hey,

i've been playing a few years but my playing is a lil sloppy (a lil sloppy is an understatement heh). anyway i heard over and over that the use of a metronome is pivotal to good guitar techinique, especially shredding. so i went to a site and found an oline metronome this week. and i am just wondering how often do i increase tempo. i started with the arpeggios from hell from yngwies video (just the main riff.) i started slow and gradually increased the tempo. i played the riff a few times on each setting intil i got a good feel for that tempo. the first try i made it to 160. the next day i tried i made it to 168 without getting too sloppy. should i just keep practicing like this?

it sems to be a wonderful endurance exercise and i've tried the same method with a few other licks. i also saw an eric johnson video and i noticed he uses A LOT of upstrokes. so i even practice the same thing starting wiht and upstroke instead of down. i notice this give me a little more control depending on what i am playing.

anyone have any suggestion on how i should use a metronome???? and if you know of any lessons on right hand technique let me know. i don't think theres enough info on the right hand techniques on the internet cause i think its more importand than you left hand.

ranma187

you seem to be doing the right thing, just don't rush. Only increase the tempo once you have mastered the setting before. Something you should also play equal attention to is setting the metronome at slow speeds (like around 60-80 bpm). Playing at slower speeds rounds out your technique because it takes discipline and control to play on time with slower tempos. Something that will definitely help you out in the long run. Also try different rhythm patterns, and different alternate picking combinations. Doing different things will build competence with your right hand so try different things as they come to you.

Do every technique with a metronome, and start at a tempo where it is very easy to play so that you master the motor skill part of it first. Then increase the tempo.

Try to check John Petrucci's Rock discipline video.He has some cool quotes about use of metronome too.
Good luck! ;)

Also try slowing down to very slow speeds. try playing quarter notes at forty. It's harder than it looks if you record yourself. Make your you pick each note equally. Record yourself alot. You'll hear small mistakes here and there. Also you got to 160?! what kind of notes were you playing? Half notes? If you're playing 16ths or 8ths, that doesn't seem to good if your looking to get perfect timing, but then again, I've never heard you play. Also if you can manage to sweep the Arpeggios the Yngwie uses that's ummm, watch out.

its better to be really accurate and really slow at first than it is to be a little bit off and going really fast



if you want to really improve with a metronome you might want to start out learning easier things with a metronome. for example do three note-per-string scale arpeggios (easy cuz the first note of each string will be the click) as eigth note triplets and watch your picking

if you want to improve sweep arps do the same thing except
do it once with all down strokes then several times with all upstrokes till the ups and downs are caught up to eacthother

when i speed up parts i play the harder licks twice making shure that everything is dead on and speeding up by five each time and going back down a little if i think im off

Look into a thread titled "am I crippled?" or summin like that, in this forum...there is a guy called Chrombeast who has written the most profound advice for right hand technique development and metronome use that I have ever seen...This guy knows his stuff and his advice has sure helped me to become a much better player than I was two weeks ago